


you are here (this is my favorite place)

by americium_amicum



Category: K-pop, Korean Actor RPF, Real Person Fiction, 소녀시대 | Girls' Generation | SNSD
Genre: F/F, brief mention of other SNSD members, my heart still hurts for ot9, taengsic invented angst yall cant fight me on this, taeny friendship bc i love them, they go on a vacation, they have unresolved feelings, they sort of work it out
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-23 03:14:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19142425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/americium_amicum/pseuds/americium_amicum
Summary: At the end of the day, it all boils down to this:Taeyeon and Jessica are alike in more ways than they could count, but are different in all the ways that matter.This is what Taeyeon tells herself, at least - probably because it’s what makes sense to her in this moment. This moment, of course, being that she’s sitting right next to Jessica on a beach somewhere in the Philippines.Jessica smiles. Taeyeon stares.Some things never really change, after all.Or the one where Taeyeon and Jessica unexpectedly run into each other while on vacation and end up sorting out their feelings.





	you are here (this is my favorite place)

**Author's Note:**

> This is gonna have two parts, or three at most. This is mostly me letting out all the pent up Taengsic angst over the years, while still wishing they could just figure things out and talk again. Anyway, cmon yall let's be sad together.

At the end of the day, it all boils down to this:

Taeyeon and Jessica are alike in more ways than they could count, but are different in all the ways that matter. 

This is what Taeyeon tells herself, at least - probably because it’s what makes sense to her in this moment. This moment, of course, being that she’s sitting right next to Jessica on a beach somewhere in the Philippines.

It’s funny that they would come here, of all places. It’s funny that they would be here at the same time, of all the possible days to come. Life’s funny like that, but Taeyeon isn’t laughing.

Jessica’s here to find herself, or so she says. Taeyeon’s here because she’s running away.

Jessica smiles. Taeyeon stares.

Some things never really change, after all.

 

Maybe this is where it starts:

Years ago - Taeyeon believes it was a few months before The Boys - she went on a vacation with Yuri and Sooyoung. It was a bit of an impromptu trip, the kind that you could only ever be dragged into because of people like Yuri and Sooyoung, and it had been fun. Taeyeon had always liked the water - it humbled her and calmed her in ways that most things can’t. Things had been a bit - stressful at the time, what with the announcement that they had upcoming US promotions, among other things, and Taeyeon desperately needed a quick getaway.

Boracay definitely helped - along with the fact that Yuri and Sooyoung were two of the craziest people she’s ever known, and had never even given her a minute to worry about anything else (other than the fact that they were going to get arrested or something, anyway).

“This is so unfair,” Tiffany complained then, when the three of them finally got back to their dorm. “How come you guys got a vacation and the rest of us didn’t?”

“I mean,” Sooyoung sighed, with a false air of arrogance, “I really needed to recharge for the upcoming promotions, you know? This face needs to get us to places.”

“Did you like, inhale a gallon of seawater or something?” Hyoyeon was lounging on the living room couch, taking up the whole space for herself because well, she's Hyoyeon. She shook her head in incredulity. “Because we all know your face isn’t worth shit, Choi Sooyoung.”

“Hey!”

That’s how Taeyeon found them wrestling on the ground, Sooyoung’s unpacked luggage still in the hallway, Juhyun’s eyes wide as she tried to stop her unnies, Yuri and Yoona cheering for whoever had the upper hand. Tiffany was taking a video of the whole thing, while Soonkyu looked on, exasperated yet fond at the same time. 

Ah, yes, Taeyeon thought wryly, this was the best part about coming home.

“What’s going on?” Jessica stepped out of her room. She looked like she had just woken up from a nap, but a lazy grin makes its way to her face when she sees Taeyeon. “Welcome home,” she greets, effortlessly beautiful in the way that only Jessica can be.

Taeyeon feels something clench in her heart, which she has to actively fight to come up with a coherent response.

I missed you, she wants to say.

“Sooyoung and Hyoyeon are fighting over something, but that’s not new,” She says instead, in response to Jessica’s question. “Should I tell them I brought home souvenirs to break them up?”

“Nah,” Jessica drawls. “Besides, if they keep going at it, maybe they can knock each other out, and then they could finally shut the hell up.”

Taeyeon chuckles at that. “You're especially mean today. Is this also because you didn't get to have a vacation?” 

“Yeah, that must be it,” Jessica looks on, amused, before turning to Taeyeon. “Seriously though, I was a bit jealous. Heard it was beautiful there.”

“It was,” Taeyeon agrees. “It’s a shame our schedules these days never let us take a break all at the same time.”

“Maybe we should have shifts or something,” Jessica jokes. She looks at Taeyeon then, her eyes becoming a little softer, and she smiles. “Maybe next time I get to go with you.”

Never mind, Taeyeon decides. This was the best part about coming home.

 

That was a lifetime ago - at least in Taeyeon's mind. They were too young, and too blissfully unaware of what the years had in store for them. So really, if she had to pick the exact moment where she knew she fucked up, it would be this:

“I think I’m leaving.” She says it like she's ripping off a bandaid. “Leaving SM, I mean.”

“Oh, wow.” Tiffany has gone quiet (or at least, as quiet as Tiffany can be). “Have you told the other girls?”

“Kind of?” Taeyeon grins, albeit sheepishly. “We were all a little drunk though, so I don't know if they remember.”

“You'd think you know how to deal with these things a little better, considering everything we've been through.” Taeyeon can almost see Tiffany rolling her eyes all the way from Los Angeles. Tiffany's voice crackles through the phone again. “Are you even sure about this?”

“Yes. No. Not really,” Taeyeon admits. “But the fact that the thought is in my head - that has to mean something.”

“It does,” Tiffany muses, “Or maybe it doesn't. You don't always have to complicate things for no reason, Tae.”

There's another voice in the background, and Tiffany laughs, the sound bright and ringing. Taeyeon can't help but smile - she misses her best friend, terribly so, and wishes she were here instead. 

“Sorry, that was my dad,” Tiffany says, and the smile in her voice is evident. She always sounds happier lately, and Taeyeon is glad. “Anyway, you should go on vacation.”

“Is that you telling me I should go to LA?” Taeyeon teases. “Because I’m still not that desperate.”

“You know, you’re really starting to hurt my feelings, TaeTae,” Tiffany chuckles lightly and then adds, taking on a tone of seriousness, “I mean it though. You should take a break, go somewhere by yourself. If you’re with me or any of the other girls, you’re just going to keep brushing it off until you implode or something.”

“I just don’t think it’s the right time for me to have a vacation.” Taeyeon’s head feels heavy, and she stares at her notebook filled with unfinished songs. “Besides, you didn’t have to go on a break before you left the company.”

“That’s because I didn’t have to,” Tiffany says simply. “I knew if I didn’t leave then, I would never leave at all. It was like, this now-or-never moment for me.” 

“Is that what I have to do? Am I supposed to just wait for my now-or-never moment?” Taeyeon can feel the frustration seeping into her own voice. “What if it never comes?”

“That’s the thing,” Tiffany sounds softer now, more sombre. “Sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it takes a while before you figure out what you want, and even longer for you to actually do something about it.”

“You make it sound so easy.” Taeyeon doesn’t know how Tiffany does it - how she manages to make everything seem lighter and better than it actually is. It would be easier if Tiffany were here - Tiffany had always known how to deal with these kinds of problems, whereas Taeyeon herself always ends up feeling lost. 

“It’s not. That was still one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life.” Tiffany smiles again. “Look, Tae, I have to go okay? But you have to trust me on this. When have I ever pushed you towards the wrong path?”

“You’ve done that many times, both literally and figuratively.” Taeyeon replies dryly. Tiffany laughs again - Taeyeon thinks of crescent moons, and is comforted somehow. 

“We’ll talk soon, okay? Love you!” Tiffany hangs up, and Taeyeon falls back on her bed. She stares at the ceiling and wonders when and how everything changed. 

She knows how important decisions can be - how there are choices you make that alter the course of your entire life. There are a few moments that stand out, of course - joining SM, meeting the girls. And one particular moment - a circle on the floor broken, the slamming of the door, the whole mess of the aftermath. And she doesn’t mean the media - at that point in their lives, what people had to say was the least of their concerns. She means the empty bed in their dorm, the clothes that disappeared soon after, the unanswered calls - the silence that stretched for days, weeks, months. 

Taeyeon thinks about how much of her life was affected by that one night - and how much of that night was affected by seemingly insignificant moments before that. If maybe all the petty fights they had in the months prior to that single instance weren’t so petty after all, if they all built up on each other and fell apart in that one moment where they needed to hold on. The idea of alternate universes crosses her mind, for some reason - and she lets herself dream for a while, about what would have happened if they hadn’t said the things they said and did the things they did. The pain comes, as it always does in moments like these - more subdued, after all these years, but familiar nevertheless. It’s a heavy weight against her chest, the ache of a phantom limb. 

Hope was a luxury they could no longer afford, and Taeyeon knew that much the moment she signed her name on the dotted line. But she hopes that something good came out of all of this - because it’s the only thing that could make the pain worth it. 

She glances at her phone - it’s past midnight and the lights are prettier now outside her window. The view is great from where she’s standing, but there is that saying about grass being greener on the other side or whatever, and there isn’t a lot of grass in the city to begin with. She’d like a little change of scenery, maybe.

“Fuck this,” Taeyeon sighs - books a plane ticket for that weekend and makes a quick call to their manager. She could just be running away, the way she tends to when she doesn’t know what to do. It’s unsettling, how these unwanted habits are born out of self-preservation. So Taeyeon decides to think of it as a step towards something instead - even if she doesn’t really know what that something is yet.

She breathes a little easier then.

 

The Philippines isn’t too far from Korea, and it’s the first thing that came to Taeyeon’s mind. Maybe it’s the thought that it’s different but not new altogether that comforts her, that there are already good memories attached to this place. Boracay is as beautiful as she remembers, and she’s sort of glad she followed Tiffany’s advice. She makes a mental note to call her best friend later.

Luckily, the hotel they stayed in before was more than willing to provide the same accommodations, albeit on short notice. Taeyeon liked that it wasn’t too far away from the beach, but it was secluded enough from the other resorts that it gave her a sense of privacy. 

She’d never be able to walk along the beach back home, for example, without being mobbed by fans, so she’s grateful that she has this moment now. She had fallen asleep as soon as she got to the hotel in the morning, and she’s glad she woke up before sunset - just in time to go out and enjoy the view.

She settles down on the sand - it feels nice, a little cooler now that the day was finally ending - and lets the water splash against her feet. She doesn’t really know what she’s going to do on an island known for its nightlife when she doesn’t have Sooyoung or Yuri with her this time, and she’s still figuring it out - but for now this was okay. 

“Taeyeon?”

Until it wasn’t.

“Taeyeon?” Jessica repeats. She’s standing there in a summer dress, her hair in loose curls - it’s a shade lighter than Taeyeon remembers, probably a little bleached from the sun, and it looks very pretty - and she looks genuinely surprised and more than a little curious. “What are you doing here?”

“Uh,” Taeyeon’s throat is suddenly very dry. “Well, you know - vacation.”

Jessica raises an eyebrow, almost teasing, and Taeyeon doesn’t quite know what to do with herself. “I didn’t know you had those now.”

“Yeah, well,” a weak smile makes its way across Taeyeon’s face. She hopes she doesn’t sound as stupid as she feels. “I’ve got - I’ve kind of got a say now, I guess.”

Jessica’s lips quirk upwards. “I suppose that’s true.” 

She seems to hesitate for a moment, before shrugging nonchalantly and sitting right next to Taeyeon on the sand. They’re quiet for a while - and Taeyeon thinks about all the possible ways she could have ended up in this situation. She’s not very good at math, she’ll admit, but she still doesn’t know how the odds managed to add up to put her in this exact spot, right next to Jessica Jung. 

“Jessica,” Taeyeon breathes. “You’re - you’re really here.”

Maybe the universe thinks she really doesn’t deserve a break - not just yet.

“The one and only,” Jessica says wryly, and there’s that smile that makes Taeyeon think about all the years that she managed to get by without it - more specifically, how she managed to do it.

And that’s only one of the million questions running through her head.

“Come on,” Jessica stands up all of a sudden, after they watch most of the sun disappear below the horizon. She dusts the sand off her dress, and nods towards the direction of the other restaurants and bars along the beach. “We can talk over dinner. I’m hungry, and I know a great chicken and beer place that’s not too far from here.”

Again, Taeyeon isn’t that good at math. But, you know - she isn’t stupid. When Jessica asks, Taeyeon knows there could only ever really be one answer.

“Okay.”

 

The walk to the restaurant was filled with small talk, and Taeyeon kind of hates it - hates small talk in general, hates this whole situation in general. It feels superficial, like they didn’t spend almost a decade of their lives together. They talk about the most recent Blanc and Eclare launch (“You’re doing really well.” “Thanks.”), and Taeyeon’s latest album (“You’re doing really well, too.” “Thanks.”). The conversation seems almost circular, like they’re tiptoeing around each other - not quite comfortable to talk about things that, in all honesty, they should probably have already talked about. 

(Then again, they went five years without doing just that - so what makes this any different?) 

Goddamn, Taeyeon thinks to herself, I’m not drunk enough for this. She chugs the rest of her beer to fix that. 

“What brings you here?” Taeyeon finally asks (looks like the alcohol really does pay off). “Are you with friends, or…?”

“No, it’s just me.” Jessica takes a sip of her own beer. “Figured I deserve a break too.”

“That’s fair.” 

They're quiet again and - to be honest, in all the years they lived together, silence with Jessica was never uncomfortable. Taeyeon could sit next to Jessica in the couch and not say a word and neither of them would mind. They're similar like that - they have moods when they're particularly playful, but most of the time they don't attempt to fill silences if they thought there was no need to do so. In that sense, their words always hold a certain weight to them - and if Taeyeon could trust anyone to be honest with her and not hold anything back, it's Jessica. 

Of course, it's been years, and maybe Taeyeon doesn't know this Jessica anymore - the way Jessica doesn't know her as much either. So she plays her role well, and asks the right questions - pretends that this is just two friends catching up after years of not seeing each other, even if they both know it's so much more. 

With that in mind, Taeyeon isn’t really surprised to find out they’re staying at the same hotel. “Yuri recommended it to me,” Jessica tells her, and well - that makes sense. 

The truth: this isn’t the first time they’ve talked since Jessica left in 2014. Not just for the two of them - she means the rest of the girls too. She doesn’t remember who reached out first - she figures it was probably Yoona, maybe Sunny. It started with birthday greetings, because that seemed like the easiest thing back then, and then a few coffee meet ups here and there. Some members took longer than others, but it happened eventually. They all danced around it, at first, the fact that they were talking to Jessica again - Taeyeon doesn’t know why, because it’s not like it was supposed to be a secret. But it felt that way for a while. 

Either way, Taeyeon can’t really blame any of the girls for acting like that. She thinks that maybe it was just another unintended consequence of Jessica leaving - or maybe that was just part of growing older too. Things never really work out the way you want it to, Taeyeon has come to realize, and this moment right here is proof of that. Still, this feels like another step in the right direction, and Taeyeon can’t help but want to try.

“So,” Taeyeon starts. “How are you?” She regrets the words the moment she says them - they feel foreign on her tongue, like a part of her knew that it was too awkward to say them, especially to the person in front of her. She kind of wants the earth to swallow her whole, but she steels herself anyway. Figures that an attempt is still an attempt, no matter how inexplicably difficult it may seem.

Jessica snorts. The tension isn’t lost on her apparently, but she attempts to make light of the situation. “I know it’s been a while since we last talked, so I should have expected it, but I didn’t actually think we would be reduced to this.” Jessica pauses, tucks her hair behind her ear. “Or maybe that was wishful thinking.”

“I don’t mean to sound insincere,” Taeyeon amends. She hopes Jessica can sense the truth in her words. “I actually do want to know.”

“There’s probably not much that you don’t know about anyway,” Jessica shrugs, tone dismissive. “You already knew about the launch, and that’s pretty much my whole life these days. I have that upcoming reality show with Soojung - that’s new too.”

“I could look your name up on Google and I’d still find out about that.” Taeyeon looks away. She feels petty, somehow, but the hurt creeps into her voice anyway. She hates herself for it. “I didn’t think I’d be reduced to this, either.”

“Really? Then what did you -” Jessica sighs. Thinks better of it. “Can we not do this? When I went here, I didn’t - this isn’t what I had in mind.”

Jessica looks tired, like the years have suddenly caught up to her. Taeyeon feels guilty and selfish all at once, and the apology comes tumbling out of her mouth before she could really think about it. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t know what you expect me to say, sometimes,” Jessica tells her. She isn’t looking at Taeyeon anymore either - her eyes are fixed on the bottle of alcohol in front of her, her fingers fiddling with the cap. The weariness hasn’t left her eyes, and Taeyeon wants to make it go away, even if she doesn’t know how. “Maybe all the time,” Jessica adds softly - almost like she never meant for Taeyeon to hear it.

It feels like a confession, but Taeyeon, more than anyone, can understand that sentiment. “I'm sorry,” she says again, because it seems like it's the only thing she knows how to say at the moment. “I'm not very good at - all of this.”

“No shit,” Jessica huffs. She takes a swig of her beer, and then finally looks back at Taeyeon - doesn’t say anything for a while, just stares. Jessica’s lips pull up slowly, and a small smile settles on her face. She looks unexpectedly vulnerable, and Taeyeon feels an equally unexpected urge to reach out and touch her face. She doesn’t know if it’s because of the alcohol or the years of unresolved feelings lurking beneath the surface, but Jessica speaks up again before she figures it out.

“Tell you what,” Jessica says. “Come with me tomorrow, and we can figure out all the things we have to say.” She stands up, holds her hand out, and Taeyeon takes it without thinking - agrees to whatever Jessica said without thinking. 

Taeyeon thinks that’s a fair compromise anyway. 

(“What are we doing tomorrow?”

“Skin diving.”

“Didn't know you were into that.”

“My mom told me to try new things. Skin diving is one of them. Letting go of my repressed emotional issues is another.” Jessica has a smirk on her face that she’s barely trying to hide. Taeyeon doesn’t know if she wants to hit her or kiss her. “You should try it too.”)

**Author's Note:**

> I've been in love with SNSD ever since I can remember (okay fine since 2009), and shipping Taengsic is probably the worst decision I've ever made in my life bc it has brought me notHING BUT HURT. Anyway, I figured it was about time I wrote something for the ship that taught me what heartbreak meant before anyone else ever could.
> 
> Also the title of the fic comes from the song Favorite by Ang Bandang Shirley. They're a Filipino band, and their music is really good, if yall wanna check them out.


End file.
